Sweet Murder

by Tegan Maher

  "It sounds like you didn't care much for the sheriff,” he said, “but I'm beginning to understand nobody did. Can you think of anybody who would kill him?"

  I snorted. What a loaded question. I gave it some thought, trying to remember anything out of the ordinary that had to do with Hank, and nothing more obnoxious than usual came to mind. Sadly, what he'd said to me that afternoon was nothing out of the ordinary for Hank. He was a pimple in the armpit of society.

  I thought back to our interaction, and a tendril of doubt crept through my mind. Surely that was a coincidence. I’d dropped the spell and walked away; what happened had nothing to do with me.

  Still, I didn't think it was strictly necessary to mention the fact he'd been threatening me ninety seconds before he kicked the bucket. Some information you just didn't volunteer.

  "Honestly, I think it would be easier to tell you who didn't want to do harm to Hank, if there is anybody. He's far and away the most disliked person I've ever met. He would have taken candy from babies and smacked the groceries out of the hands of little old ladies if he was sure he wouldn't get caught. For that matter, I'm sure there were times he did.”

  I racked my brain for a few seconds longer but shook my head. "It's not that nobody wanted him dead," I said. "I just don't know of a single person who thought Hank was worth the time it would take to kill him. Of course, I'm not exactly at the hub of the gossip mill."

  I paused, hesitant to point him to where he actually would find the latest gossip, but decided the girls could more than hold their own against him. And it wasn’t like it was a secret.

  "You may want to check with the ladies at the Clip N Curl. If they don't know it, it didn't happen."

  He wrote that down on his notepad. "Did he have any friends? I know the department has a bowling league he played on. Any particular guys he hangs out with?"

  "Hank didn't really have any friends and even the guys on the league only tolerated his cheating and showboating because they had no choice. He had a couple of lesser bullies that he kept around to stroke his ego and provide muscle when he didn't want to get his hands dirty. I guess if you count that as friends, you want to talk to Butch Davies and Ronnie Dean."

  "Okay, thank you Miss Flynn. May I get your number in case I have any more questions?"

  "Please, call me Noelle." I rattled off my phone number. "And if you need anything, I've lived here all my life. Things are done a little different here than what you're likely used to. People tend to circle the wagons when it comes to strangers, at least until you're not a stranger anymore."

  He quirked his lips in a manner that was a mix of indulgent and condescending. "This isn't my first rodeo, Noelle. I've been doing this for a while in Indianapolis.” He turned toward the back lot where everybody was gathered, presumably to question more people. "Thanks for the offer, though. I'll call if I need anything else. Like I said, this is all just a precaution, anyway."

  I glared at him as he swaggered away toward the crowd. He might have had experience with crime in Indiana, but he was about to experience a trial-by-fire initiation into the workings of the Good Ol’ Boys Club here in Georgia. He was in way over his head and didn't even know it yet, but damned if I was going to feel sorry for him now. He’d figure it out.

  I curled my toes one more time before I had to stand up, then felt the wad of cash in my apron pocket. I smiled. Hank was dead, I’d made some money, and I’d met a hot guy. If it weren’t for the mountain of deviled eggs, macaroni salad, and tater tot casserole I had to clean up, I'd have been positively gleeful at the way the day was going.

  As it was, I turned back toward the melting, fly-covered pile of food on the floor and heaved a sigh. My Advil was wearing off, and soreness was creeping in. By the time I'd righted the table and dragged the trashcan over, I was spent. I glared at the mess then glanced over my shoulder, exhaustion and irritation prevailing over caution.

  The coast was clear for the moment so I cast a quick glamour around the tent so it looked empty, then flicked my wrist toward the mess. If not for the dishes in the goo, it would have been easier to just heave it all toward the trashcan, but that wasn’t how this worked. I had to salvage as many dishes as I could, or else half the town would have a hissy because I tossed Great Aunt Sally's eyesore of a pie plate.

  I kept one eye on the crowd while I concentrated on moving all the non-disposable dishes from the muck to a waiting bus tub. After that, it only took me two fingers and ten seconds to move the rest to the industrial-sized garbage can, where I dropped it in with a sloppy splat.

  I released the glamour and checked the tea canisters, glad to see they were still relatively full, then set about restocking plastic silverware and napkins. I had the whole tent straightened up to good enough in about fifteen minutes.

  I dried my forehead on my sleeve and took a long drink of tea, mulling over the last couple of hours. I'd mostly blocked out the vision of Hank being sucked to his crappily-ever-after and was focused more on the here and now. Like Bobbie Sue, I was sure that Hank's heart had finally lost its battle with mass quantities of saturated fat.

  Still, the deputy's line of questioning made me think. Again, guilt and doubt niggled at me about what I'd done, but I dismissed it again as an overactive conscience. However, if somebody else killed Hank, then that was a whole new can of worms. Why somebody would kill him was a no-brainer. Pick one reason from a hundred.

  The only real mystery, if it turned out somebody punched his card for him, was figuring out who'd finally worked up the gumption to put him out of our misery.

  Looking back, I really should have thought a little harder about that part.

  Chapter 5

  E

  arlier in the night, Skeeter had brought my truck over to me. I'd filed a report about the brakes with one of the deputies the day before, but I was mostly given half-hearted platitudes and a line of bull that led me to believe my report would never see the light of day.

  It was almost nine-thirty by the time everybody cleared out from the festivities. We'd started cleaning up when the fireworks began, so by the time they were over, the only thing left to do was pick up the trash on the lawn.

  Even Bobbie Sue, the never-ending bottle of energy, was whipped. She took one look at the mess and collapsed onto a chair. "I just have to sit down for a minute before we finish up. I'm beat. You girls have to be, too."

  Sarah looked as ragged as I felt. She was a young single mom with an adorable little boy named Sean. She'd gotten mixed up with a real tool who'd left like his hair was on fire five seconds after she told him she was pregnant. To top it off, her uncle had disappeared right before Christmas, so she’d taken in his four-year-old daughter. Now she was working her tail off trying to make ends meet while raising two kids and taking classes at the community college.

  I looked around to make sure we were alone, then wiggled my pointer finger to turn out the lights and extinguish the tiki torches, leaving only the moon and the glowing neon signs to see by. I muttered a few words, and in short order the yard was clear and the cans were full. I didn't have the energy to empty the cans, magically or otherwise, but the rough part was done. I dropped back into a chair beside Bobbi Sue.

  I don't let just anybody in on my secret, but Bobbi Sue and Earl have known my family since before I was born, and I'd worked with Sarah for almost four years. In fact, she had some psychic talents of her own, though they were pretty much all passive. Magic ran thick through more than one Keyhole Lake family, though many wrote it off as gossip or tall tales.

  Bobbie Sue sighed and put her arm around me, leaning her head on my shoulder. "Bless your little heart, Noelle. Now, let's go home."

  Sarah and I split the tips folks had left in the jar rather than handed to us, and I headed toward my truck. I'm not gonna lie and say I wasn't nervous about driving again, but it had been parked in plain sight since Skeeter dropped it off. Plus Hank had practically admitted he'd been the one to cut them, and he'd been taking a perman
ent nap since before my truck left the garage.

  I climbed in and just enjoyed being off my feet for a minute before I reached down and twisted the key. Bessie didn't groan quite as much as usual when she turned over, and I made a mental note to thank Skeeter for showing her a little extra love. I gave the brakes a few test pumps as I drove down the street—just to assure myself they worked—then turned out of town toward home.

  Ten minutes later, I turned onto the driveway. Even in the dark, I could imagine the green pastures that stretched beyond the pristine white fences on either side of the road. I couldn't help but marvel that all that property, and the antebellum house and ten-stall barn at the end of the drive—along with the responsibility for their upkeep—belonged to me. I felt equal parts love and terror. Whatever happened, good or bad, was my responsibility.

  Shelby and I had moved in with our Aunt Adelaide and Uncle Calvin when I was twelve years old, right after we’d lost our mother. My dad was beside himself. He barely knew how to deal with his own grief, let alone how to soothe two young girls. My sister was only four, so the concept of death wasn't so defined for her yet. I, on the other hand, was already dealing with newly acquired magic and the angst that came with pre-teen hormones.

  Dad had dropped us off at the farm one day and never returned. Addy and Cal didn’t miss a beat; they waited a week, then went to our old house, loaded up our stuff, and moved us in. That was that. In the following years, I spent much of my alone time in the barn grooming, cleaning stalls, and talking out my problems with my little paint mare, Brandy. Uncle Cal passed when I was 16, and it broke my heart, but we managed to get by. When Addy had passed a few months back, I was devastated.

  I continued running the farm because somebody had to, and it was a good way for me to feel close to her. About a week after her funeral, her attorney came to the farm to formally notify me that she'd left me everything.

  What the attorney didn't know was Addy had already told me herself a couple of days before he did. Imagine my surprise when, during one of my stall-cleaning crying jags a few days after she died, I turned around and saw her standing in the doorway to the stall. She'd passed up the opportunity to move on and had decided to stay around, at least for a while, because she was afraid to leave us behind. I couldn't have been happier. Well, except since she could no longer hold a pitchfork, she hovered over me, pointing out spots I missed.

  I bumped along the pothole-ridden drive and was surprised to find a deputy's cruiser sitting in my driveway. Surprise turned to panic when I thought about why a cop would be at my house so late at night. Was Shelby in trouble? Lord, what had she done now? Had something happened to her?

  My mind raced as I ran up my front steps and across the porch. By the time I made it inside, I’d worked myself into such a tizzy that it didn't even occur to me that if something had happened to my sister, the deputy would have been sitting outside waiting for me.

  I slid into the kitchen with my heart pounding to find Deputy Hotstuff Jerkface sitting at my kitchen table drinking iced tea with Raeann and Shelby. Addy, invisible to him, was hovering over a spot near the stove watching but looking relaxed. From the easy way Hunter was speaking, I assumed nobody I cared about had lost life or limb and I wasn’t in imminent danger of going to jail.

  Once I realized that, I stopped mid-stride and waited for my heart to drop out of my throat and back into its normal spot. Shelby was laughing at something Raeann said, so she must not be in trouble, either. I cleared my throat and four sets of eyes swung my direction.

  "Hey, Noelle," Raeann said. "We didn't hear you come in. I figured you'd be at least another hour or so. I was just telling the deputy here that he may want to go back down to Bobbie Sue's to talk to you." She got up from the table and pulled a pint jar out of the one of the oak cabinets beside the fridge, then poured me a glass of tea.

  I sank into one of the soft kitchen chairs and ran my hand over the gleaming pine of the farm table, brushing off imaginary crumbs while I tried to figure out why he’d want to talk to me again. At that point, I honestly didn't have the energy to care. I took a long pull from the tea and rolled my shoulders, letting some of the stress of the day melt away.

  "Don't worry, honey," Addy told me as she floated behind him. "He ain’t here to arrest anybody. He just has a few questions. Answer, but don't offer anything additional.” She paused and arched a meaningful brow at me, like she knew what I’d done. I swear, the woman took the phrase eyes in the back of her head to a whole new level. “Be nice. He's an outsider and don't know any better."

  I was worn to the bone, and his highhandedness earlier hadn't exactly given me the warm-and-fuzzies, despite Addy's words. I just wanted to find out what he wanted so he'd leave and I could take a shower. I let out a long-suffering sigh and turned to him.

  "So, I'm here. What can I do for you? I'm exhausted, sore, and can't imagine what else you'd need that I didn't include in my statement from earlier."

  Raeann and Shelby looked perplexed at my rude tone, but I was too tired and irritated to care.

  Hunter, at least, had the good grace to look abashed. "Look, I think I may have been a little condescending earlier."

  I cocked a brow at him. "You think?"

  He cleared his throat and continued. "Yes. I'm sorry. It was a really ... odd day for me, and I was having trouble wrapping my head around the situation. I still am, frankly. The reason I'm here is because I was going through the sheriff's office and found a police report wadded up in his trash can. I have no idea how it ended up in there and figured I'd ask you about it. It was one you filed yesterday about your truck."

  I huffed and shook my head. Of course he threw it away. "Are you asking me why I filed it, or why it was in his trash can?"

  Hunter looked a bit off-kilter, which was rapidly becoming his standard expression. "Well, both I guess."

  Shelby's eyes glittered with anger, outraged for me. "That no-good sack of crap just threw away the report?" She turned to Hunter. "Somebody cut her brake lines and tried to kill her yesterday. Her truck crashed over the hill on her way to work and if it hadn't been for a bunch of luck and a tiny little maple tree, she'd be dead."

  "But why would he throw it away? That should have been a priority." He looked so serious that I felt bad for him. He was obviously one of the good guys, but he was in way over his head. He might as well have been on another planet.

  Addy scowled and shook her head. "I told you it wouldn't do no good to go to the cops. They're crooked as a barrel of fish hooks." She rubbed her chin. "He don't get it yet, girls. You're gonna have to spell it out for him."

  I heaved a sigh and nodded. The faster he got it through his thick head that he wasn't in Northern Normalville anymore, the faster he'd leave so I could take off my pants and bra. "Look. Keyhole Lake isn't anything like Indianapolis. We have less crime, but things just don't work the same here. Sheriffs tend to have a lot of power and nobody to keep them in check, really. So if they're good people, they're good sheriffs. If they're asshats who think the sun rises just to hear 'em crow, then they're going to be arm-twisting bullies like Hank was."

  I got up to refill my glass. "But, to answer your question, Hank and I didn't see eye to eye. I have no idea why he threw my report away. Maybe it was because he didn't like me. Heck, maybe he was the one who cut them to begin with. It sounds about like something he'd do. He wanted this farm."

  Raeann, who had sat back down beside me, added, "She doesn't mean he did it himself. Hank was too lazy—and too fat—to pull that off. He would have had somebody else do it."

  Hunter’s brows shot up. "Are you seriously suggesting the sheriff tried to kill you to get your farm? Why would he think he'd get it even if you did die?"

  I shrugged. "You're asking me to look into the head of a dyed-in-the-wool good ol' boy and sift you out a logical answer. I have no idea. Maybe he thought he could scare me into selling. Maybe he figured if I died, he'd be able to get it because Shelby's a minor. Who knows. May
be he just didn't feel like investigating it. All I know is I filed a report."

  I still didn't feel the need to come clean about my last conversation with Hank. I figured it couldn't do any good, but it sure would make me look guilty. Then the tax bit of the conversation popped into my head. That was going to be on paper. "I should probably tell you that when Hank got there today, he made it a point to mention there'd been an ‘error’ with the property appraisal when this house was in probate and that I owed more taxes on it."

  I used air quotes, which made him raise his brows. "What do you mean, ‘error?’" He tossed the air quotes back at me.

  "I mean Aunt Adelaide left me enough money to cover the first round of taxes, which were already inflated. She wasn't rich, but she did have some money tucked away. Luckily, so did I. Hank knew I'm barely making ends meet and that the taxes cleaned me out. I can't pay another cent, even to hire an outside appraiser. He'd get the chance to buy the farm on the courthouse steps for the taxes when I defaulted."

  While he digested that, I looked around my kitchen and drew strength from the happiness it gave me. Addy had remodeled it a year or so before, and while she'd kept the antique oak cabinets and large farm table, she'd replaced the old Formica counters with gleaming gray marble and installed a new farm sink and stainless-steel appliances. She'd pulled up the peeling linoleum and had the original wood floors refinished. The memories of helping her plan it were just as comforting as the warmth that seeped from the walls of an old house that had been filled with nothing but love.

  "Who did you file the report with? Did you talk to Hank, or was it one of the deputies?"

  Raeann answered. "I went with her. It was than snot-nosed little punk nephew of his. Gerald. That kid's cut from the same cloth as his uncle, but he has no spine and couldn't pour piss out of a boot without diagrammed instructions. He does have a mean streak a mile wide, but he's more the type to kick puppies rather than take on a full-sized dog."